I wake before Talia with her firmly spooned in my arms on the impossibly small twin-size bed which reminds me of my days back in boarding school and college.

In the early morning light, I survey her childhood bedroom. I note that the room is not only tiny but crammed into the limited space is a small dresser, dilapidated desk, and bookcase along with the bed taking up almost all of the rest of the floor space with barely a foot on the left side of the bed and only two feet on the right and at the foot. The room can’t be any larger than my walk-in closet. Other aspects of the room break my heart like the water stain in the ceiling and the lack of a closet door. Then there are amazing things on her bookshelves that make me grin. Math trophies and honor roll certificates. I can see where she must have had her book collection all lined up. I try to imagine a younger Talia sitting at the desk in the corner with its small task light and lopsided drawers.

“Don’t look too closely, okay?” she mutters.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” I whisper, kissing the top of her head.

“I wasn’t really sleeping.” She stretches and turns in my arms to face me.

“Cute room.”

“You’re weird,” she tells me while rolling her eyes.

“And I never knew you were so decorated.”

I flick my eyes to her award shelf, and she shakes her head.

“I don’t know why I hung on to those.”

“Hey, there’s something to be said for a spelling bee and math champ. Don’t you dare discount those. I can’t spell for shit. I’d be dead if it weren’t for spell-check.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” she says, pinning me with her ethereal blue eyes.

“Ask Mrs. Edgars, my high school English teacher,” I tell her, holding my hand up like a boy scout.

I hear a faint noise like a chainsaw.

“Is someone doing yard work?” I ask, straining to hear the noise more accurately.

“That’s my mother,” she says, shaking her head at me, and chuckling when my eyes bug out of my head. “Thank you,” she says softly.

“For what?”

“For staying. For being so… you.”

“Like I said last night, no other place I’d rather be. I want to be here for you.”

I hug her tightly and kiss the side of her head. All of this close contact with Talia has my dick all excited, and I do what I can to will the boner away. I don’t think an early morning romp is what Talia is hoping for. I spot a baseball bat next to her bed. “Did you play little league?” I ask.

She turns her head to look at the aluminum bat.

“That’s my fancy security system,” she says, turning back into my arms, her eyes not meeting mine and a tight smile on her lips.

“I’m sorry.” I pull her tightly to me and wish like hell I could make her feel comfortable with any of this.

“It is what it is, right?” she says with a deep breath. “Coffee?”

After I check on my mom and wash out the bucket she puked in last night, I make breakfast, which is nothing more than a pot of cheap coffee and toast with strawberry jam, for David and me while my mom continues to sleep. Over the meager meal, which David acts as if it’s a five- star spread, he suggests a residential alcohol treatment program for my mom. He explains the merits of that type of program, and it sounds wonderful.

“But, I don’t know how she’d feel about that,” I tell him. My mom is nothing if she’s not proud, even as an alcoholic. Not to mention that I don’t have the medical insurance I once had from my job, and I’m not sure I can cover the cost with my lottery winnings.

“Let me pay for it,” David says as if he’s reading my mind.

“You don’t—”

“Tal. I want to. I want your mother to be better, so you can stop feeling so guilty. And I want her to be better as much for her future as for yours.”

Is this guy for real?